Time for the almost biannual post!

Yeah, I know, it's been a long time. Last summer went by in a whirl. We were busy, busy bees and have the pics to prove it. But first, I FINALLY got some shots of the wisteria in bloom last Spring. A couple of years ago, I got lazy about trimming it at the end of the winter, and got way more blooms on it the next year. Now I don't hack away after October. Pay no attention to the date on the pictures-new camera-you know how that goes...













So on to the big project last summer: The Driveway.

The goal is to make it pretty enough to discourage Tim from piling crap there. I started at everyone's favorite place, BBG , and traced the picket fence posts in the Children's Garden. Tim used them to design and build a fence just past the side door.

The gate helps to obscure the mess beyond, but fails to conceal it. Plus there's some mess in front of the gate, too, including a nice dutch door (behind the bench) the merits of which we're having a *ahem* healthy debate over.
Me: Yay. Visions of Mr. Ed sticking his head in to borrow a cup of sugar.
Tim: Needs significant security upgrades. Don't even ask for the details. It's not pretty.





K, so Tim's got this grand plan involving brickpaving and I want, duh, more room for plants, so the next phase involves removing all that concrete.

Well, the concrete was removed from the ground beyond the fence. What to do with all that concrete?
Pile it up on the other side of the fence, of course! We've been trying to evaporate it by posting on craig's list several times with the most interesting response from a production team that was pondering using it as an extra in a dream sequence from that TV show with Brooke Shields. Only in NY. Could I make that up? Turn around time ended up too short, so there went my concrete's chance for fame. Some guy took some for fill, but I'm afraid there's a dumpster in my future in the Spring.

Remember the grand plan? See up a couple of paragraphs to review. That was another craig's list adventure, because you should know by now we don't pay for anything we can get for free. We found a couple out on the island ditching some bricks. We drive up to a neat, older home on a lovely street. Lawn is perfect. Backyard has a spotless barbecue, a table & chairs, and precisely stacked next to the EMPTY garage is over 300 clean bricks. "Thank you so much for taking this eyesore off our hands" she said with gratitude. Eyesore? I beg to differ. I got an eyesore for ya, toots (see above).

Say all you want about minivans, but hey, we got all the bricks home in one trip.
Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the bricks in place, but it looks nice. I got a nice bed for some hosta & ferns (very shady) in, and a nice oakleaf hydrangea (gets a little peek of sun down at the end) that will hopefully grow to block the view beyond. The bench by the side door has been replaced by a nicer one from Avenue P. It's currently forest green, but I'm thinking it may have to be granny smith green. Tim finagled still more bricks from our neighbor Fred that will be the next brick project: Removing (relatively speaking) more concrete and bricking by the side door.

Happy Spring!

Yes, I've been neglecting the blog. Fear not, Spring is here and we're busy at work in the garden again. We hit the BBG Plant Sale two weeks ago. Luckily, I got everything I wanted, except a funky hosta. Nothing new to be had. I did get yet another hellebore for under the dogwood, a neat fern, an oak leaf hydrangea, some annuals, and Tim got a Spanish broom which has a cool spare structure to it. It also needs full sun, which is in short suppply around here. I'll post pics once we've settled everyone in their place. The pics below are from last summer when Tim sodded the back lawn and put a sprinkler system in. He's handy to have around for things like that.

Here, the soil has been all tossed and fluffed.

Now Tim smoothed the soil and trenched out where the sprinkler hose goes.

And here's our lovely sod. Or there was our lovely sod. It hasn't come back as lush this spring, but it's still better than what it was.

Here's a shot late in the afternoon-you can see why grass is a challenge with so much shade back here.

So far, all our plants have come back nicely. I've rearranged a few-I had some mums in the window boxes last fall that came back, so I moved them to the side yard in front of the lavender. The lilac had lots of blooms (on the sunny side) now that it's in a sunnier locale, the wisteria and azalea were fabulous.. I'll have to go around the house and snap pics of everything in bloom now. That's for next time. Stay tuned!

Long time, no see!

Yep, I'm back. We were doing real swell last summer, and then we were swarmed by mad crazy mosquitoes. It was painful to go outside. We used mosquito coils, citronella candles, and a wide variety of sprays and lotions, but it was still insane to linger outside. Bummer. It was the first year in a while that the city didn't spray for mosquitoes, and boy, did they take advantage.

I'll have to post some pics on my next post of Tim's new project-a hot tub. Not content with just plopping it on the ground, or incorporating it into the deck, he's decided to enclose it. It's coming along very nicely. hehe now you'll have to stay tuned to see the pictures! His goal is to have it presentable by Sarah's birthday so she can have her friends in.

Of course, this will require some landscaping revisions, which is always fun. I never got around to posting pictures of the other side of the yard where the driveway and vegetable patch is, so I'll make sure to do before and afters before we get started. Fun, fun.

Paint!!

Every morning, I eat breakfast on the steps of the deck and look around the garden. Every morning, the white plastic chairs in the gazebo are whoopin' it up an' hollerin' out how cheap and plastic they are. Just look at them in my first post. Real loud, too, like they just hopped off the Greyhound from Alabama or somewhere. So I started looking around for replacements. Yikes! Nice chairs are pretty expensive, even at the current end-of-season prices. So I searched out some paint. Much cheaper. The kid at Home Depot who unlocked the paint jail(after asking to see my ID-I'm so flattered!) assured me a can of spray paint is good for like 3, maybe 4 chairs -HA! Do not believe the kid in Home Depot. It was barely one can per chair. But since each can was $4.97, it was still way less than even buying brand new cheap white chairs. I purchased RustOleum Hammered Paint for Plastic in Dark Bronze and sprayed till my finger ached. One chair done, 5 more to go! It wasn't long till I realized the white table wasn't going to do it with my newly refined chairs. So it was back to Home Depot for the regular ol' RustOleum Hammered Paint (2 cans @$5.97) for that. Paint is so cool. Now I sit on the steps with my cereal, and my chairs just give me a polite little nod hello. It's like I sent them to charm school.

This is not the first time Mr. RustOleum and I have crossed paths. The lovely terra cotta statue under the lilac? She's an imposter! When Tim brought her home, she was plain old cement white. She had a brief stint as an extra in P.S. 193's production of "Orpheus and the Underworld", where she was tarted up with some color, but after she came back home, I hosed her down with some TerraCotta Spray Paint and Voila! she no longer looks like some chick you'd find on the curb.

What's New

Some new photos this week:

A Daylily with Heuchera

Hydrangea and Phlox

Black Eyed Susans

Dan snapped a pic of this cool mantis

More Before Photos!

Gardening is not a rational act-Margaret Atwood

I disagree with Ms. Atwood mostly because I can rationalize anything if I want to do it bad enough. This is our house when we bought it in 1993. Again with the chain link fence... That's Tim's brother Jimmy unscrewing the door to get in. I can rationalize some gardening here big time. Note the garbage cans as lawn decor.

We painted the place as soon as we could. The pink rhododendron was there already, as was the azalea that is not in bloom in this picture. We added the weeping crabapple next to the stoop.

Now there's new windows, siding, and a new roof in progress. The lattice fence next to the pond is visible on the right. And there's Jimmy, still trying to get into the house ;-)

Here's a festive holiday shot with the picket fence in progress. Tim salvaged the bricks from a demolition on 65th Street, made the cement caps, and the fence. The house is still waiting for trim around the windows.

And here's a picture I took today (drum roll, please...)

The wisteria is about ten years old and every year we say we're going to take a picture when it's in bloom, and we always miss it. We originally planted one on each side-thank God the one on the right fizzled out-I trim the remaining one every month or so it grows so fast. The giant yellow lilies started off as one I'd picked up from Home Depot and forgot about. It started to grow and grow and grow-I've never seen a lily so tall before. It has a really nice scent at night. That's still the crabapple next to the stoop.

The other side of the fence

Here's a photo from the front garden-the other side of the lattice fence in the pond photo on June 20th. This area was so vexing for years. It was Goldilocks gardening: plants were too big, too small, too dead, too perfect somewhere else... I'm finally starting to like the current lineup. I purchased the yellowy leaved heuchera from White Flower Farm last year with the two ferns whose name escapes me and a climbing "New Dawn" rose that is not blooming right now alongside the pink rose to the left. The pink rose is an original flower carpet rose that's about 12 years old now. It looks nicer on the fence than on the ground. I added the darker heuchera behind the yellowy ones when we divided some from the front yard. It has wispy pink flowers that look really sweet next to the darker foliage. Behind the ferns is a nice shrub we got this spring at BBG, a ninebark (physocarpus opulifolius 'Minda'). I never heard of it before, but it's pretty. We'll see how it holds up.

We went away on vacation last week-it's cool when I haven't seen the garden in several days-so much has changed. I'll take some pictures tomorrow and share them.

Oh, almost forgot-one of the turtles is AWOL. Tim looked all over for him. We're hoping he's having happy turtle adventures...